james_davis_nicoll (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
james_davis_nicoll) wrote2009-01-07 10:25 am
james_davis_nicoll) wrote2009-01-07 10:25 am
About Avatar: The Last Airbender
Over in soc.history.what-if, Doug M. says I have to point out that while the /world/ of Avatar is very Asian influenced (and in a charmingly syncretic way...love that Balinese monkey chant), the ethnicity of the characters is quite deliberately blurred. Ang has pale skin, brown eyes, and vaguely Caucasian features; Saka and Kitara have olive skin, vaguely Asian features, and blue eyes. Zuko and the other Fire Nation characters tend to look Northeast Asian, but their eyes are usually orange, red or gold. In fact, this was one of the fun aspects of the series; the various "tribes" were to some extent racially distinct, but in ways that didn't map to here-and-now ethnic groups.
I have not seen Avatar but the above makes me want to track it down. I don't see any particular reason why the particular constellations of associated features in humans in secondary worlds would occur as they do in our world [1] if the histories of the worlds are distinct (and assuming we're not talking about a world crafted by some Dull God too uncreative to avoid blatant ethnological plagiarism).
1: A special stabbity-stabbity to all those authors who have secondary worlds with nations and ethnicities unlike our world's except for the gypsies, who apparently spring up like mushrooms everywhere even in worlds where their historical roots do not exist.
I have not seen Avatar but the above makes me want to track it down. I don't see any particular reason why the particular constellations of associated features in humans in secondary worlds would occur as they do in our world [1] if the histories of the worlds are distinct (and assuming we're not talking about a world crafted by some Dull God too uncreative to avoid blatant ethnological plagiarism).
1: A special stabbity-stabbity to all those authors who have secondary worlds with nations and ethnicities unlike our world's except for the gypsies, who apparently spring up like mushrooms everywhere even in worlds where their historical roots do not exist.
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1) Sokka and Katara are Water tribe, Zuko is Fire, hence the eye colors, which are thus not useful markers;
2) The clothes etc. are very strongly influenced by specific ethnicities (see this enormous screen-shot essay: http://aang-aint-white.livejournal.com/1007.html);
3) re: "vaguely Caucasian features":
http://www.matt-thorn.com/mangagaku/faceoftheother.html
http://shati.livejournal.com/239195.html
In other words: No.
(Edited for accuracy upon re-read.)
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Sloppy work by a professional academic. Also, I note that he dances around the question of Japanese cartoon representations of Africans (and 'Melanesians' etc).
As for Shati's LJ post, it greatly overestimates that depiction's universality as a face, as well as the historical development of the smiley face as "unmarked". I suspect a cartoonist from an east Asian artistic tradition two hundred years ago would view the picture in the post as some sort of skull. Ruskin once saw a similar drawing, IMS from a medieval manuscript, and denounced it as ridiculously programmatic.
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screen-shot essay: I'm shocked, shocked, to realize that the water tribe had blue eyes and the fire nation tended to have red-gold eyes, and the earth kingdom to have green eyes. (Exception: Toph, blue. Then again, she's blind.)
Actually that *is* a bit odd, since on the surface the show leads you to think bending ability is hereditary, legend has it that the ancient ancestors *learned* the various arts (we even seen two characters re-learn from the source), so for RPG purposes I'd say that anyone (or at least any potential bender) can initially learn any element, but apart from the Avatar you're locked into that element. And of course people growing up surrounded by Xbenders will imbibe the moves and energies of X. But they never do tell us what happens in mixed marriage.
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Pretty much. According to the creators (and one or two characters in the show), the difference between benders and non-benders tends to be at least partly genetic, but the difference between, say, a Waterbender and a Firebender is much more sociopolitical/religious.
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(Anonymous) 2009-01-07 04:24 pm (UTC)(link)Clothes, etc.: you're refuting an argument I haven't made. We're agreed, that the look and feel of that world -- clothes, hairstyles, architecture, writing, music -- is almost entirely non-Western, mostly East Asian with odd bits skimmed from elsewhere.
Vaguely Caucasian features: this one is the most fraught. The artists drew Aang -- deliberately, one suspects -- with the vaguest features of all the characters; it's easy to miss because his face is so mobile, but in stills you can see that he's not much more than a smiley. So, it's a bit like trying to suss the ethnicity of The Yellow Kid.
That said, I have to point out that while many characters in that world have distinct epicanthic folds, Aang does not.
Doug M.
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First, I'm relying heavily on the content of the links I posted, which say the most important things much better than I could.
What I meant about the eye colors is that this one characteristic has been obviously overriden for Avatar-world-specific worldbuilding purposes. Saying "Since Zuko has yellow eyes, his appearance can't be modeled on Chinese peoples" is like saying "Since Zuko can blast fire" ditto. It just does not strike me as useful.
As for Aang, he's _young_, and one of the ways you show youth is big round eyes. And "not much more than a smiley"--did you *read* those links? Because that's exactly what they're talking about.
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Eye color for me is overridden by other markers. If someone has dark skin and blue eyes and non-European clothing, I don't think "dark skinned European", I think "Other with odd eyes".
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(Anonymous) 2009-01-07 05:38 pm (UTC)(link)There are young characters with epicanthic folds. (Including, oddly enough, one of Aang's airbending playmates.)
Zuko-- even eliding eye color the characters are still ethnically blurry. Fire Nation have black hair, may have epicanthic folds or not, and show a wide range of facial features -- Zuko looks vaguely NE Asian but (for instance) Admiral Bad Guy from Season One does not. Similarly, even without blue eyes, the Water Tribe aren't just Inuit -- Katara with brown eyes would look French or Spanish; give Magic Moon Princess dark hair and eyes and she'd look like Romy Schneider. On the other hand, Sour Old Water Master looks like a blue-eyed Fu Manchu.
Also, not to belabor the point, but why does "overriden for world-building purposes" take eye color off the board? All Fire Nation have black hair. That's probably another aesthetic worldbuilding choice; should we ignore that too, and try to guess what Zuko would look like blonde?
Doug M.
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(Anonymous) 2009-01-07 05:59 pm (UTC)(link)Doug M.
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Strangely
(Anonymous) 2009-01-08 10:30 am (UTC)(link)If an argument's been demolished, I don't think it was one I was making.
Doug M.
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